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Brayve stared balefully at the pile of paperwork before her. Foundries did not just generate steel. They also generated very complicated networks of materials flowing in and materials flowing out. The foundry her husband had owned, and which she insisted on continuing to operate, took in tons of pig iron, dolomite, limestone, spiegeleisen, and coal every day, and produced tons of steel, slag, and ash. The great dragon wagons, with their long trains of carts pulled behind them on rails made of the very steel she was making made daily trips to haul everything to and from the foundry. Hundreds of men worked in the foundry, three shifts a day, keeping the furnaces roaring and the crucibles full. All of that required funding to pay for, and profits to allocate.

And all of that meant considerable paperwork to keep everything functioning smoothly.

Sighing, she pulled open a drawer on her husband’s desk and fished for the flask she kept inside of it. It proved to be a futile effort. Isole, it seemed, had located and disposed of the strong liquor. For a maid, she was far too much of a busybody for Bravye’s taste. She was also damnably good at her job, which is why Bravye allowed her to get away with the pilfering of drinks.

Frustrated, she slammed the drawer back shut on the desk and stared at the stacks of ledgers and papers before her. Her head hurt a bit, and she felt a bit fuzzy minded, but the paperwork needed to be done. Truth be told, she actually liked doing it. She was good at it, and, perhaps more importantly, it brought her fond memories of her father and her husband both.

She hadn’t been keen on the idea of marrying as a girl. Her father had raised her in truly appalling fashion, spending more time instilling in her skills for mathematics and business dealings than preparing her to be a bride. Brayve had thrived under the tutelage, and had even taken to assisting her father with maintaining the books for his fabric factory.

The approach of her 30th year, and thus her achieving a marriageable age, was a thing of dread for her. Marriage meant being under the guidance and protection of another man. Dwarven society made it pretty clear what her duties as a wife were to be, and accounting or managing were not among them. The date had come and went with no more than a few idle inquiries she had quickly managed to scuttle, however, and that was that. Her mother, knowing a lost cause when she saw one, hadn’t given more than a token resistance and turned to ensuring that Brayve’s brother would be the one to provide her with grandchildren.

Then her father had brought home a man her own age that had quickly begun debating over dinner the best way to encourage investors to aid in upgrading a foundry with new steel manufacturing techniques. Before long she’d tossed in her own opinion about the obvious flaw in the thinking of both her father and the man seeking her father’s investment. Soon she was engaged in a lively (one might even say unseemly) shouting match with the young man as her father had watched on with both pride and bemusement. By the time the man left he’d found both an investor and a fiancé.

While marrying Blaistrupe had not been wholly free of wifely trappings, the onerous parts had proven to be more than compensated by life with a man who not only loved her, but who treated her as a partner outside of the house as well as in. When he’d decided to expand the foundry he owned, Bravye had been his first and foremost counsel while debating whether to expand the building they already had or purchase a larger one elsewhere. Whenever someone came by hoping to convince Blaistrupe to invest in new equipment or seeking to negotiate a contract that was more to their advantage than to his, it was Bravye he’d always looked it over with first. And when he’d chosen to raise an artillery battery for the clan and lead it himself, it was Bravye whose hands he’d left the foundry in.

It hadn’t been official, of course. No one would have ever allowed a woman to undertake the trials and hardships of industry or to sully her purity with business dealings. It would have been far too much of a burden on such a fragile creature, not to be considered. As such Blaistrupe had officially left the factory in the hands of the foreman. Unofficially, the foreman did nothing without Bravye’s approval.

That was the state of things up until Blaistrupe died in his second battle, fighting elves in some place Bravye had never heard of before. After two months of waiting fruitlessly for Bravye to adhere to tradition and turn the factory over to the nearest living male relative the foreman had quit. No one else had stepped forward asking to be nothing more than a figurehead, and so Bravye had been running things openly for the three months since.

While there was no doubting that there had been consequences to this, things were going surprisingly well. The foundry had lost business from men completely unwilling to work with her, yes, but the demands of the war had quickly replaced them with new contracts. She was having no problem keeping the foundry profitable. But a profitable foundry required even more care than a failing one, and the perpetual fight against accumulating paperwork and bookkeeping seemed to be steadily going downhill by the day.

Still annoyed at the missing bottle of booze, she slipped the first paper from atop the stacks and began to read.

She’d scarce gotten through the second bill for the delivery of next month’s coal when her struggles with industrial entropy were interrupted by a knocking at the door. She wasn’t even given the time to decide whether or not to permit entry when the door swung open and Isoli stepped in with a tray carrying tea, two cups, and a plate of confectionaries. Tutting, she swept a place clear on the edge of the desk and settled the tray down. She peered closely at Bravye, sniffing noticeably, then nodded approval.

“There’s someone here to see you.” The maid picked up the tea pot and filled one of the cups full of tea.

“Can I say no?”

Isoli picked up the other cup and filled it as well. “Her name is Snosote, Daughter of Born, Widow of Baver. She’s come to ask for help.”

Bravye gestured towards her desk. “Isoli, I have too much paperwork to see anyone today.”

“I’ll show her in.” Isoli turned and walked out the door.

“It’s no wonder you never married,” Bravye muttered.

She had barely had time to set the pages she’d been looking over onto their appropriate stack before Isoli had returned. Following Isoli was a woman perhaps only a decade older than herself, but much taller. Her hair was loose in the style that told everyone looking that she was a widow, but without even a single strand of grey in any of its chestnut drape. Her eyes, however, were deeply set in a ruddy face, a shocking contrast to Isoli’s pale complexion. Crowsfeet were forming at their corners, speaking of ingrained worries dwelled on too long without answer.

Bravye rose to her feet from behind the desk. “Snosote, was it?”

Isoli led the woman to a chair in front of the desk, then stepped back to hover quietly in the background. She gave Bravye a quick nod.

Bravye sat back down, watching as Snosote sat as well.  She took a small cake from the tray, then slid it slightly towards the woman, waiting until she had taken a small pastry.

“What can I do for you?”

Snosote moistened her lips, her eyes looking down towards Bravye’s chin. “My husband was killed in battle two weeks ago.”

A far too familiar stab shot through Bravye’s stomach. “I am sorry for your loss,” she whispered.

For a moment, neither woman spoke any further, but allowed a silence to grow between them. Then Snosote stirred, drawing in a deep breath. “His kin are refusing me, and our son with me.”

Bravye drew in a sharp breath. “They can’t do that. It is your right as his widow to receive a stipend.” Shocked, she leaned forward. “Is it because of your clan?”

Snosote’s eyes narrowed. She turned her head to the side. “I shouldn’t have come. I am sorry to have troubled you.” The woman began to rise from her chair

“Wait. Please.” 

Snosete hesitated a moment, then slowly settled back into the chair, wary. “When you married your husband, you became a part of our clan. Even if that weren’t so, you are not to blame for the war that stole our husbands away. Even your former clan is not. If anyone has to be blamed it is one grief crazed man and the ship of fools he commanded.”

Snosote said nothing, but something shifted in her shoulders, a small release of tension.

“Was he with my husband’s unit?”

Snosote nodded. “He worked at the foundry. When he volunteered to go with your husband his parents cursed him for a fool. When he died…” The woman looked down at her feet.

“How old is your son?”

“Nine.”

Bravye leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling, contemplating a moment. Her eyes drifted down the wall and over to Isoli. Seeing the maid looking back at her, she softly arched an eyebrow.

Isoli nodded.

“Very well. I can’t give you charity, but… Isoli? Do we have any needs here?”

Isoli made a good pretense at having to think about it. In truth they were in desperate need for staff. Soon after the foreman had quit at the foundry, the major domo had quite as well. Ever since then the staff had been bleeding employees, leaving maintenance on the house perpetually behind. “I believe we could use a maid.”

“Thank you.” Bravye turned back to Snosote. “I’m sorry to have to ask you to work for what your family should be giving you as your right. But if you will accept I’ll see that you are treated decently, paid, and given a place for both you and your son to stay. That is, if you are willing.”

Snosete gave a shiver of suddenly released tension. “Thank you,” she gasped. She rose quickly and turned away, doubtless to hide the tears that Bravye had seen beginning to form.

Bravye stood and walked over to Isoli. “See to it she has quarters and a meal. If she needs help with any possessions, have one of the men assist her.” Leaning in she lowered her voice. “Also see to it she’s given time to grieve before she’s put to work.”

Isoli nodded, but before she could turn to lead Snosote out, Bravye caught her sleeve and pulled Isoli close. “And find out who these people who abandoned her are.”

Isoli gave Bravye a deep, thoughtful look for a moment and then nodded a second time. Turning, she led Snosote out of the room.

Sighing, Bravye turned back to the desk and the waiting paperwork. She reluctantly lowered herself into the chair and pulled open the drawer, looking again for the missing flask.